Recording work in progress
During the Summer of 2004, SUAT was commissioned by Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust to record the remains of the outbuildings surrounding Cottown Old Schoolhouse, near Glencarse, as a community archaeology project. This was one of the main events of Perthshire Archaeology Week 2004 and a total of eleven volunteers took part in the work, under the supervision of an archaeologist from SUAT.
The Old Schoolhouse, now owned by the National Trust for Scotland, lies approximately 1km east of St Madoes on the Carse of Gowrie between Perth and Dundee. It is a rare survival of an 18th-century clay-walled and thatched building, of outstanding national significance. The history of this building is difficult to establish, although records show that the parish school and schoolmaster’s house existed in Cottown from the 1760s to around 1804.
A derelict, late 18th-century stone outbuilding to the north-west of the Old Schoolhouse was recorded by measured survey and photography, and trenches were excavated in the west and central rooms of the building.
The structure of the outbuilding revealed many changes had taken place
An excavation in the
west room revealed a patched clay floor surface with evidence of occasional
workshop use. In the central room,
excavation revealed a brick floor surface overlying a remnant of a sandstone
slabbed floor. Finds included
ceramics, glass and a long handled, bladed tool.
A mid 20th-century pigsty to the south-west of the Old Schoolhouse was also
surveyed.
Recording surviving features in the stonework |
Making a detailed plan of the excavated floor |
The survey and
excavations helped to illuminate the sequence of construction and alteration of
the buildings on the site. Analysis
of the outbuildings
has improved our understanding of the use and purpose of the site as a
collective economic unit.
The project also provided worthwhile and enjoyable experience for volunteers, both locally-based and from further afield, and many members of the public visited the project for guided tours of the site.
Some of the archaeological team members